March 20, 2025
In this week's edition: the top 50 news websites, the best times to post on social, the importance of repetition, the numbers behind podcasts, the rise of the silver influencer, and much more...
Play the long game to build a strong reputation - “Using insights from a Bloomberg Media study, here are six ways leaders can influence corporate reputation approaches within their organizations.” (IMD)
Best time to post on social media: Q1 2025 update - In its latest study, Hootsuite “analyzed over 1 million social posts — across industries and social networks — and found the definitive best times to post for maximum engagement.” (Hootsuite)
Six steps to improve crisis communications for long-term resilience - “Robust crisis communications plans can bring significant financial, operational and commercial benefits to UK financial services firms, safeguarding their long-term resilience and underpinning effective risk management.” (EY)
Top 50 news websites in the world - “The Hill and AP saw largest growth in February.” (Press Gazette)
Is this an example of best practice corporate communications? “Match Group CEO Spencer Rascoff posted an open letter on LinkedIn admitting his company’s dating apps are falling short and don’t feel like places “to build real connections.” He’s now calling on Match employees to offer feedback on how to best improve their apps like Hinge and Tinder.” (Fortune - $). LinkedIn letter here.
The importance of repetition in the workplace - “In the same way that many politicians have a stump speech they can give at every rally, most bosses are too busy to craft their messages from scratch every time. But mainly it’s to do with the way that people remember things and absorb ideas.” (Economist - $)
Why do journalists not always reply and give feedback to unsuccessful pitches? One reporter’s view: “It feels too often like by replying at all, you spur repeated questions, requests, or pushes, which isn’t great when you get 200 pitches a day. As if by merely replying you’re signalling a willingness to essentially brainstorm a media strategy for a client they’re selling.” (Martin Kimber)
How to Strategize in an Out-of-Control World - “In 2025, political surprises are adding fuel to the fires of business uncertainty, complexity, and volatility. Here’s how leaders can navigate this special type of risk.” (MITSloan)
Tesla investor calls for Elon Musk to step down as boss - "‘The company's reputation has just been destroyed by Elon Musk,’ he said. ‘Sales are plummeting so, yeah, it's a crisis. You literally can't sell the best product in the market place because the CEO is so divisive’". (Sky)
The numbers behind podcast audiences - “Half of the podcasts on earth have fewer than 50 weekly listeners. Conversely, at the very top of the pile, are a small number of podcasts with over 1000 listeners. 95% of podcasts never get close to this. The 1000+ club covers a tiny 5% of all podcasts. Anecdotally, some pod-producing friends have noticed there’s definitely a chokepoint at around 2000 listeners that even good podcasts struggle to break.” (Gralefrit / Joel Morris via Matt)
Meta Tries to Bury a Tell-All Book - “Savor the irony. Meta, the company that recently announced an end to fact-checking in posts seen by potentially millions of people, is griping that an author didn’t fact-check with them?” (Wired) A few more thoughts from a comms standpoint.
How do LLMs rank content vs SEO? “Instead of backlinks, LLMs score authority based on mentions in credible independent places (e.g. scientific journals, famous blogs, news outlets.)” (Matt Lerner)
New Research: Google Search Grew 20%+ in 2024; receives ~373X more searches than ChatGPT - “If you’re encouraging your marketing team or agency to get you into the AI tools as a way to future-proof your efforts (and because you know it overlaps with doing good PR work that likely influences many more of the right people), don’t let these numbers sway you. But if you’re recklessly investing in AI tool visibility because of media hype, you might use this report as an opportunity to reconsider whether your budget and effort matches where your customers pay attention.” (SparkToro)
Reddit is the internet’s fastest-growing social media site. Why? “eMarketer attributes Reddit’s significant time growth to the fact that it offers ‘perspectives from real people that are harder to come by these days.’” (Tubefilter)
Brands hire Gen X and boomer influencers as the ‘power of the silver influencer’ rises - “As the influencer marketing space and creator economy continues to grow, so-called silver influencers, or creators from Gen X (45-60 years old) and boomer generations (ages 61-79) are increasingly catching marketers’ attention.” (Digiday)
Too Many Trends! “‘microtrends’ now rise and fall in a matter of weeks. In its quest to retain our attention, social media seemed to have heightened both the quantity and intensity of what we once called a fad: Under algorithmic feeds, the popular becomes more popular, and the obscure becomes even less visible.” (NYTimes - $)
And finally, the most popular article from last week was Marketers don’t know what an insight actually is and consumers don’t care by the Drum.